Other Aircraft

The Rammer

The practice of tai-atari, which literally means ‘body crashing’, was not unique to Japan. The deliberate ramming of one aircraft by another aircraft has happened as far back as World War 1 when Imperial Russian Air Force pilot Pyotr Nesterov used his 1912 Morane – Saulnier monoplane to ram an Austrian Alba­tross B. II on 26 August 1914. In World War 2, the first ramming attack went to Lt. Col. Leopold Pamula who used his stricken PZL P. llc to down a Messerschmitt ВИ09 on 1 September 1939. It would be the Russians, Germans and Japanese who would make ramming a part of their war doctrine.

Whereas the Japanese would simply use available aircraft to conduct ramming or tai-atari attacks, the Germans took it a step further by producing and designing aircraft specific to the task. One operational example was the Focke-Wulf Fw 190A-8/R7. To enable the fighter to penetrate bomber formations the Rammjager (or Sturmbocke) was Fitted with armour plating to enable it to weather defensive fire as well as possibly surviving a successful ram. Sturmstaffel 1 was the first Luftwaffe unit to operate the fighter. As the war went on and US bombers filled the skies, and the Luftwaffe was more and more hard pressed to stem the tide, a number of dedicated rammer aircraft designs

The aircraft depicted here sports the colours and markings of the 53rd Sentai operating in defence of the Japanese homeland.

appeared. One of them was the Zeppelin Rammer.

The Rammer was a small, single seat air­craft that was towed into the air. As it was designed for ramming, the constant cord main wings were strengthened by the use of three tubular spars along the forward edge of the wings. The remainder of the aircraft was bolstered to allow it to withstand impact forces. A single Schmidding 109-533 solid fuel rocket developing 1,000kg (2,205 lb) of thrust was fitted into the tail and the motor provided
a total of twelve seconds of thrust. In the nose were fourteen R4M rockets or a single SG 118 battery. The cockpit was within an armoured tub providing 28mm of armour plate in the front and sides with 20mm in the rear. The glazing was 80mm of bulletproof glass in the front and 40mm thick on the sides. The method of attack was to tow the Rammer within.48km (0.3 of a mile) from the target and release it. The pilot would ignite the rocket motor to boost speed and fire off the nose weapon at the first target before making a ram attack on a second (or the same) tar­get. After engaging in the ram attack, the pilot would glide back down to earth. The Ram­mer was test flown, without power, in Janu­ary 1945 and a pre-production batch of sixteen aircraft was ordered. However, Zep­pelin’s production facilities were destroyed by US bombing before their construction could commence.

The Japanese would use aircraft already in operational service for ramming attacks such as that Kawasaki Ki-45 and even stripped down Kawasaki Ki-61 Hein fighters. It was long thought that Japan never developed a dedicated rammer aircraft of its own but this is no longer the case. Recently discovered in the archives of the Japanese National Insti­tute for Defence Studies is just such a project.

The aircraft was a joint venture between the IJA and the UN, something that occurred with more regularity towards the close of the war. The design was based on the Sytisui – shiki Kayaku Rocketto (meaning ‘Autumn Water’-type ram attack rocket), a project started in March 1945 for a unmanned, remote controlled anti-bomber missile. The plan was to ground launch the missile, guide it remotely towards the target, engage the tar­get via ramming, and then recover the missile (if it survived the collision) for reuse. Design work was carried out by the Kokukyoko (the Aeronautical Bureau) and, although a mock – up was completed, the war ended before finalised production plans could be com­pleted, let alone the missile ever being tested. The missile’s design borrowed heavily from the Mitsubishi J8M Syusui in terms of its shape. Interestingly, the Messerschmitt Enz – ian anti-aircraft missile had a shape influ­enced by the company’s Me 163 rocket interceptor, of which the J8M was the Japan­ese version (see page 96).

The piloted version used much the same design as the missile and was a small, tailless aircraft featuring low mounted 45° swept wings. The fuselage was bullet shaped with a large vertical stabiliser into which the cockpit was blended. Located in the back of the fuse­lage were four Type 4 Mark 1 Model 20 rock­ets, the same as those used on the Kugisho

MXY7 Oka which on such a small aircraft pushed the maximum speed to an estimated 1.125km/h (699mph or just over Mach 0.91) — i. e. a transonic speed. With a speed in the transonic range, this aircraft would have pre­sented a formidable challenge to the Japan­ese given that even the Germans had only just started investigating the problems of high­speed flight when their jet and rocket aircraft began to push into such speeds with the resultant issues of compressibility. It is unknown if the Japanese rammer had swept wings because the designers understood the principles in relation to overcoming com­pressibility problems at transonic speeds, or if the shape was chosen as a means to provide an angled cutting surface to facilitate ram­ming attacks, or as a drag reducing planform. The wings were strengthened to withstand the high impact forces experienced when striking the enemy bomber. Even though the rammer could rely on speed as a defence when under power, it still had to contend with the defensive armament of the B-29 and thought the pilot had some measure of armour plating and bulletproof glass to pro­tect him. The aircraft was certainly capable of gliding back to base to be refuelled and relaunched once it had conducted its attacks. Given the small size of the plane, no landing gear was fitted. As such, it is likely the under­side of the fuselage was reinforced or had a skid installed. How it was to be launched is unknown – it could have been towed aloft, catapult launched or perhaps even vertically launched.

In a ram attack, typically the tail would be targeted because the loss of the tail assembly would send the bomber out of control. Strik­ing the wings and engines was another focus of ramming attacks. Finally, the aircraft fuse­lage was the other key area to strike. The probable mission profile of the rammer flying from a ground base would include being positioned within very close proximity of likely bombing targets. With the short burn time of the rockets (8-10 seconds) the air­craft’s operational radius would have been very limited. After launching, as bombers came into range the pilot would attempt to ram into either the tail or wing of the target with the objective of severing it from the fuse­lage. If enough speed momentum remained after the initial hit, another ram attack would be made. Should the aircraft remain in flyable condition and if the pilot did not elect to ram his entire plane into a target, he would return to base where the rockets would be replaced. If the bombers were still close by, he could fly another sortie. If the rammer was towed into the air, the rockets would most likely have been fired on approach and again after hitting a target. This would provide enough power to grant a second pass with sufficient speed to allow for significant damage to be inflicted on the bomber when it struck.

However, the Japanese rammer would remain a paper project only. It is unclear if the design was to be the definitive rammer model or simply a proposed concept.